


anything to feel your breath on my neck

by gearsystem



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Both of them!, Canon Trans Character, Dancing, Intimacy, Love Confessions, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, mentions of bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gearsystem/pseuds/gearsystem
Summary: an exploration of physical intimacy in the safety of a cabin, between two men who've been through much together.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53





	anything to feel your breath on my neck

“Jon, it’s okay, I can drive.”

“No, I got it, Martin, you need the rest.”

“Jon—“

I can’t keep talking before he squeezes my hand, and my mind freezes.

“It’s alright, Martin, don’t worry. Just get in the car.”

I find myself listening, opening the door and sitting down. Jon isn’t touching my hand for a second, but the right side door opens up, he settles down, puts the key in the ignition. 

I start moving away from my body again. I’m familiar with the feeling now, after months in close quarters with The Lonely. My body is on a plane far, far from me and any mind I have. If I get too close to my body, I’m too close to other people. So I float away, my mind moving to a thought or a lack thereof. 

Jon touches my hand again, and I am forcefully brought back to my body, to the reality my body inhabits. Jon’s hand is warm.

“Hey, I’m here,” he says, a gentleness lacing his words in a way I’ve come to notice in recent months. His soft tone charges me into the present. I cannot convince myself that I’m not imagining it.

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I lie. I can’t say what I do and do not know now. My knowledge is removed from me the same as my body tends to be. But Jon seems to be good at bringing me back to one of those. Maybe he can bring me back to other things.

“It shouldn’t be too much longer than normal, I should think. Ten hours or so, but we’ll make it. Get some sleep if you can,” Jon reassures me, and I can sense him trying not to coddle me, but at this point I wouldn’t care if he was. I think I nod, but I can’t be sure.

My fingers tingle in a familiar way as Jon holds my hand. He’s been touching me since we got out of the Lonely, with the exception of getting into the car, and I’m okay with that. I think. What I am and am not okay with right now is muddled at best. But his hand is in mine while he drives the first leg of the journey to Scotland.

—

The cabin door opens after the click of the key in the shoddy lock, and Jon lets me go in first, his hand still firm in mine. The door slots closed behind us, and the air is still. Jon breaks the silence first. 

“We’re here.”

I almost fall over, to be honest. The wave of everything  _ hits  _ me and I nearly collapse onto Jon, but I don’t because his  _ hand  _ is on my  _ chest. _ Oh God.

“Woah, hey, c’mere, it’s okay,” his voice is so tender that my heart aches. Before I know it, Jon’s arms are around me, and after I know that, I notice that they are shaking. Oh,  _ I’m  _ shaking too. We stand there, shaking, breathing, holding. And it is now, just now, that I realise what is happening.

Not the hug, not the shaking, but  _ this.  _ The touching, the  _ I need you,  _ the  _ what do you see,  _ the asking me to run away with him, all of it. It hits me and I’m shaking and Jon is holding me and my body comes back to me before I know what’s going on around it.

I pull myself away from him enough to find his face. Try to parse out what his face reads.

_ Exhausted. Anxious. Lov— _

Stop.

“Jon, are we—?” I can’t seem to make myself finish the question, but there’s something in me that makes me think I don’t need to.

“Do we need to figure that out right now?” The question is not accusatory or harsh, he is genuine. I ask myself the question, like the person Jon is asking is five seconds away from me. 

“N-no, we don’t,” I answer myself and Jon in the same thought.

“Is  _ this  _ okay with you?” He looks at our hands, unmoving.

“Y-yeah, yeah.” That Jon would ever think I would not be okay with him touching me is something I’m going to try not to curse myself for until the day I die. 

“Are you hungry at all?” The inquiry hits me in a more abrupt way than I expect, as I can’t seem to find out the answer. I know I should be hungry, I don’t think I’ve eaten much other than a piece of beef jerky that Jon put in my hand while we were driving, but the answer I find in my head doesn’t meet well with the logic.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay. Do you want to sleep?”

“Yes.”

A panic I cannot recognise builds in my throat like a sludge, thick and rotten, putrid in its intensity. It is almost to my teeth before I can place the source.

“Stay with me, please,” I whisper, small, mouse-like, insignificant. I do not meet Jon’s eyes.

“Of course, Martin, I’m right here,” he replies, somehow not skipping a beat. I notice that his hands are moving up and down my arms, slow, soothing. I wonder how long they’ve been doing that?

The bed is tucked into the corner of a small bedroom, dusty and reeking of a loneliness I am certain Daisy felt upon entering here. A loneliness that makes the idea of sleeping beside Jon both more and less horrifying all at once. If I didn't know better, I would swear there is a fog hovering around it. 

But Jon is rustling through the wardrobe for sheets, a murmured  _ yes  _ to indicate a victory. Any possible fog dissipates. 

I’m sure the next thing Jon does is make the bed, but I can’t seem to find the visual in my mind before the mattress is covered in a dark blue sheet and there are two somewhat lumpy pillows placed at the headboard. Jon, a small smile adorning his face, pats the space next to him. 

“I need to get changed,” I force out of my mouth. I think I expect Jon to move or do something, but then I realise my rather explicit request just moments ago. 

“Me too, do you want me to change in here with you?” There is a poignancy to the question that makes my chest ache more than it ever has before. His kindness bothers me with its unfamiliarity, but I have to ignore it because  _ we don’t have to talk about this right now.  _ Instead, I settle for a timid nod before I take my backpack off my shoulders to rummage for my pyjamas within. 

I decide that turning toward the wall is the least awful way to go about this. Before I can even  _ think  _ to remove my jumper, Jon speaks again.

“I’ll turn away, don’t worry.” A reassurance. My heart twists. 

As quick as I can manage, I take my clothes off, then slip on a comfy shirt and trousers over a new pair of pants. I try to make my face resemble the shade of a peach rather than a full-blown tomato before he gives me the okay to turn back around. 

“Good?”

“Yeah.”

We make our way to the bed. I roll to the far end, as I imagine Jon won’t be doing much actual sleep during this whole process, and I’d like to give him the ability to get up with ease. 

Being in a horizontal position changes my reaction to Jon touching me. It’s nothing extreme, the touch, but it’s… heavier somehow. He’s lying down beside me and his hand reaches around to touch my shoulder. If I didn’t know better, I would swear there’s fire under his fingers, but the Desolation is far from here. No, the heat he’s leaving behind is caused by the contrast of my own chill. I’ve been so much colder in the last year. 

“I may not sleep, but I’m right here, alright?” Jon whispers. I want him to wrap his arms around me like he did at the door, I want us to curl around each other and  _ breathe,  _ but I know it’s too much. Too close. I settle for reaching up to squeeze his hand in mine. 

“Goodnight, Jon,” I murmur. I hope the smile living in my heart translates over to my lips, but I’m too exhausted to check. I hear him turn toward me, his heat warming me just as much as the duvet, and I welcome sleep as the old friend it always has been.

* * *

I haven’t been around someone sleeping since before the Unknowing. Martin’s signed over to the Eye still, so I don’t see his dreams when he sleeps, and I don’t want to. But, I am feeling the lingering  _ hunger  _ that I have come to know over the last few months. That sense that I need to fulfill something. The hunger makes me feel a mock sense of exhaustion, but I know sleep won’t help. Or, at least, the act alone won’t. It’s the dreams of others that feed me now. That feels far more invasive to me than reading a statement, though. 

So, I wait for Martin to fall asleep and stay asleep for a while. I reach down to my bag that’s placed on the floor beside the bed, and I grab the folder of stale statements I shoved into it in a panic. The tape recorder I brought with me is next to it, and I don’t even have to place a tape within it, as it seems to have found its home there by itself.

The statement I pull first is one of Evangeline Cooke, and I know before even glancing at it that it is to do with The Vast. I murmur the statement into the recorder, holding it close to my face, hoping that I don’t wake Martin whatsoever in the process. 

Statement ends, and in a matter of minutes I feel a bit more stable. Martin doesn’t stir beside me. Another statement, this one from Valentin Lazaro, related to an encounter with The Corruption. 

I continue to read old statements, softly into the tape recorder until I see the sun rise and decide to attempt lying down like a normal person. These do not energise me in the way that live statements do, but I will settle for this. I’m more awake than ever, but I have no intention of breaking my promise to Martin of staying within arms reach. 

So, I lay next to him, still for a moment as I debate how close I should be to him. I settle for not close enough to be touching him, but just enough that he might touch me if he rolls over. I can’t help but scoff at myself. The bizarre tiptoeing is what I’ve become used to since I woke up, but now it feels different. Now, we’re here, Peter’s dead, and we held hands for most of the car ride here. Figuring out what any of those things translate to is a level of effort I can’t fulfill on my own, but I know it doesn’t equal coworkers or acquaintances anymore. 

Perhaps it doesn’t equal friends either, but I can’t hold out for anything beyond that right now. Even with him sleeping by my side, I cannot let my wants get ahead of reality. It’s too risky.

Martin sleeps, and I don’t. There’s a part of my mind, not insignificant, that thinks the way the sunrise reflects against his face is beautiful. Maybe, that part of my mind will be louder from now on.

* * *

As promised, Jon is beside me as my eyes flutter open from an unknown number of hours rest. My dreams took me far, far from my body to a place I can no longer remember, and in the time it takes me to come back to my physical form, I find myself folding toward Jon. He’s awake, I think trying to avoid a voyeuristic sleep, and by the time I’m aware of what my arms are doing, they’re holding him. 

“Good morning,” he says, warm, but worn. I reply with little more than a groan, still lost in the fog of sleep.

Jon runs a hand up and down my right arm and the sensation sends a small  _ shock  _ through me. 

“Did you sleep okay?” he asks, and that’s when my mind checks into what’s happening. 

“O-oh, yeah,” I say, pulling back a bit as I’m certain my sheer presence this close must be suffocating him. He moves with it, though, turning around to face me. 

“Tea?” he offers. It’s soft, holding an intonation that should calm me, should soothe the neverending fear in my gut, but instead it grates against my mind. 

_ Why is he being so nice to me? _

I realise then that while I may have been too tired last night, avoiding  _ this  _ is going to drive me mad. But, I do want some tea first. I’m not quite to the point of having serious conversations with Jon while in bed together.

I pull the Earl Grey tea bags out from my backpack, as I’ve started to just keep them on my person now. Jon makes me tea, although more surprising perhaps is that he makes himself tea. The mugs we scavenge from the cupboards have to get rinsed of dust first, but they work. We make it work. The tiny breakfast table beside the kitchen has two chairs, and we sit together (closer than is strictly necessary), sipping tea in a minor silence. That grating feeling returns in my chest this time, though, and I can’t stand it anymore.

“So, this, the thing we didn’t have to talk about last night,” I blurt out. It’s an attempt to start a conversation. I hope it’s enough for Jon to know how to respond.

“Yeah,” is all I get back.  _ Shit,  _ looks like I have to stop being avoidant altogether for this.

“I’m not stupid, Jon, but it is… difficult for me to put all of this, all of your side of things together here. I was… too far to see some of it, I guess.” A shame flows over me, one that I know well. A shame that exists from years of taking care of my mother, a shame from having a crush on my  _ boss  _ of all people, a shame of being the fattest student in my year, a shame that seeps into my bones sometimes. A shame I’m trying to move away from, maybe. I hear Jon sign through the muddy, nasty thoughts lining my mind.

“That’s, understandable. Yeah. I don’t know, to be honest. It’s not something I could pinpoint on a timeline or justify to other people, I just… I don’t know what I’m saying.” He turns to look at me, and I make my head turn to meet him. “Back there, in The Lonely, I went in there without a way out.”

“What do you mean, a way out?”

“I mean, even though my  _ anchor  _ with The Buried didn’t work, and you… the tapes were the thing to pull me out then, I still had  _ something.  _ There was no anchor this time, Martin.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that, I didn’t care if I couldn’t get out of there, I needed to try to save you.” He reveals it while looking at his hands, unsure of where to be. I know the look from past times he would admit something to me. Back when we were stuck in his office, during Jane Prentiss' attack. It’s vulnerable, it’s small. I notice the slightest tremble beneath his fingers.

“Jon…” is all I can get out of my mouth. What do you say to that? How do you respond to someone saying that they were willing to die to save you?

“I knew what other people had said, before, about you and your feelings toward me. When I woke up, I listened to all the tapes from that night, of Elias saying those awful things to you. But that was before, and now there’s…”

It’s then that I realise, just a  _ little,  _ how much everything I’ve done over the last year has looked like I don’t care. Like I don’t feel anything anymore, like I was just working for Peter on the slim chance that I might distract him or die trying. How all of that must be obvious to Jon, even if he didn’t hear me say it. 

“Do you… Know what I said to Elias and Peter down there?”

“Er… you mean…?”

“That I did all of that, all the working with Peter, all the research on the Extinction, everything, because I thought  _ maybe, maybe  _ it would protect you from whatever nonsense Peter and Eli—Jonah, had planned. I counted on the slim chance that if you survived all that, everything would be okay.” I don’t know how I managed to get that out of my mouth again, but when I finish, I look up to see Jon’s face. I can’t read everything in his expression, but I know I see awe. If he already knew, then, why?

“Martin…” he starts, unsure of where his words might be taking him. “You know you don’t have to do that anymore, right?”

“I think so, I think I do. But, my point, Jon, is I don’t want you to think that—”

“That you don’t love me anymore,” he finishes my sentence for me in a somewhat eerie way, before shaking his head a bit. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“It-it’s okay, I just—I’m sorry I pushed you away. But that doesn’t answer  _ my  _ question. Why did you go into The Lonely?” I redirect the conversation again. I have to know. I have to hear him say it to me. I can’t guess anymore. 

“I thought it was rather obvious, but then… It’s only fair, I suppose. I’m not… good at this, Martin. The first thing I thought of when I woke up was to ask where you were. And then, when I found out you were working with Peter, I worried. But now… I don’t know. I’m shit at all of this, and I’ve been shit to you before, and I don’t know. I jumped into The Lonely because I wanted you to be safe more than I wanted me to be safe. And there was some part of me that knew we could get out of there, which was right, I suppose,” he rambles, but the words are golden. I notice he’s breathing rather fast, and staring at the table with an intensity I can’t comprehend, so words may not be enough to bring him back to reality.

I reach out to touch the hand that’s closest to me, silent, but intentional. It’s then that I notice my hand is a bit shaky too, so I hold him there and we both tremble with the weight of our conversation and I try to breathe. 

“I’m not good at this either, Jon. It’s… you don’t have to be good at this. Let’s keep it simple, yeah? You don’t have to make any big declarations or whatever, just answer my question?” I’m kind of surprised by my composure.

“Okay,” he replies. Willing. He holds my hand tighter, just a bit, and his gaze softens.

“Are you interested in me, romantically?” It sounds so clinical and weird coming out of my mouth, but being anything other than direct will just waste time at this point.

“Yes,” Jon says with certainty. The clarity in that  _ yes  _ is more apparent than it ever was in the ramblings from before. Something sharp  _ pangs  _ in my chest, and I hope that I don’t ruin this somehow. 

“Okay.”

“Are you?” 

“Yes.”  _ Of course I am,  _ I want to say. But I don’t, this is too delicate. This is one thing I don’t want muddled with any hellish nuance or dismissal. I need to know how Jon feels and Jon needs to know how I feel without any nonsense. 

Jon turns his body toward me this time, not just his head, and looks at me. It’s a proper, genuine look. He isn’t Knowing me or Seeing something, he’s just Jon. I feel compelled to move closer, initiate something I’ve done little but  _ consider  _ in the past. I want to, more than anything, but I wait. I want him to make the move, for some reason.

“I… I don’t know what to say next,” he says, but it isn’t riddled with fear that I’m expecting from him. Our hands are still clasped together, but it’s like I can feel him waiting for something. I just have to  _ ask.  _ Agonising as it may be. 

“Can I…” the words fall from my grasp for a moment. “Can I kiss you?” I force out of my mouth. The look Jon gives me makes my stomach knot in a wonderful way. The exhaustion fades from his eyes (they look different?), and he smiles at me. 

“Please,” I swear he  _ pleads.  _

I’ve thought about kissing plenty of people in my life. I’ve managed to fulfill that thought with far less. But, kissing Jon doesn’t feel like any of those other times. There’s the blink of awkward stumbling to figure out where our noses go, but it’s easy. His lips are softer than I expect, and our hands part for a second only for Jon’s small hand to hold my cheek. My hand moves to his neck, holding him in place. 

We’ve been kissing for a few seconds before I actually realise that I am  _ kissing  _ Jon. We are in a safehouse, drinking tea at the table together, Peter is dead, and his lips are on my lips. The  _ everything  _ hits me and I have to pull away to catch my breath, but I keep him close. My forehead meets his and we’re quiet for a minute. 

“I love you,” Jon whispers, and inhaling becomes all the more difficult. 

“I love you,” I force out through a shaky exhale and a smile, demanding to be known. I realise how unfamiliar I’ve been with Jon’s smile as he beams at me and I have to kiss him again.

“Martin,” he says, soft and hesitant. The words are few, but somehow (I hope not by some supernatural force) I know what he’s saying.

“I know. I promise it’s real.”

The way his shoulders drop just the slightest bit tells me he believes me.

* * *

I’m unfamiliar with the concept of other people wanting to touch me. Not even in a sexual way, but in any way at all. Unfamiliar with the idea that someone would look at me and feel the urge to touch my shoulder, my face, take me into an embrace, acknowledge me in a physical way whatsoever. Even allowing myself to  _ want  _ physical touch has been an emotion left rather off limits by my own psyche since I was young.

But, Martin seems to want to touch me. And I am in no place to reject it. 

I mean, hell, I was surprised he even wanted to kiss me, let alone continue to show me physical affection after that. I guess some part of my mind was convinced that he would have enough after that, and a kiss or two would let him know that I’m not as enticing as I might have seemed before.

It seems that isn’t the case, though. I sense him behind me before I feel or hear him at all, something I’ve gotten accustomed to doing. So, when he wraps his arms around me while I wash the dishes, I don’t quite know why I’m so stunned by the motion if I know that he’s behind me.

“Hi,” Martin greets, his voice soft but a bit more confident than it’s been before. I’m quite a bit shorter than him, so he curls around my back to kiss my temple. 

My heart races under him, but I try to retain composure. 

“Hi,” I offer back, trying not to show how shaken I feel. I don’t want him to think I’m uncertain about  _ wanting  _ his affection; that could never be true. No, I’m uncertain that physical affection is something I _ deserve _ .

“This okay?” He’s been asking that a lot over the last couple of days. So have I, to be fair. I know there’s necessity in it. We’re both so rattled from the events of recent times that we want this one thing to avoid the nonsense of miscommunication. Even still, I resent that I’m so inept with all of this that I need constant verbal confirmation that my (boyfriend? what word do I even…) partner (?) is allowed to touch me at all. I hate that we’ve been made into this by the world around us, but I can’t change that now.

“Yes, more than okay,” I affirm anyway. My irritation at our trauma doesn’t surpass the need for things like this. I know that. I lean into him, ignoring the last two mugs in the sink over focusing on how warm Martin is. 

Recognising that any effort to finish the washing up is null at this point, I dry my hands on the dish towel and turn around in Martin’s grasp, peering up at him. I see the slight stubble growing along his chin—caused by the noticeable lack of razor in our little cabin—and I, thoughtless, reach up to touch his cheek.

“Not going to finish the dishes, then?” he asks, a grin spreading along his lips.

“I guess I’m distracted,” I reply. This is new to me, flirting. Or, I think flirting is what you’d call it. The shared grins and light touches lining an undercurrent of emotion that I’m just now starting to grasp. Instead of ruminating on it, I pick myself up onto my toes, bring Martin’s face to mine, and kiss him. It’s nothing intense, but it’s a bit more than a quick peck. He holds my waist in his arms and returns the gesture. I can feel his smile against mine, and it makes my chest do flips I’ve never experienced before. 

The strength of my toes doesn’t last longer than a couple seconds, so I resign myself to pulling away. To make up for it, I run a hand through Martin’s thick, curly hair (the grey is fading back to his natural red, now, but it lingers). 

“Remind me to distract you more often,” he says, matter-of-fact in tone, as if making a mental note. I can’t help but smile, leaning into his chest. 

I love him. That’s the sole thought I can muster. 

I’m still shuddering when he holds me, he still jumps when I touch his face (just a little), but there’s something in my head, perhaps All-Knowing or just hopeful, that knows it will become second nature to us soon enough.

* * *

I guess you could say my relationship with dancing is, well, complicated. I grew up the chubby kid; tall and uncoordinated, unable to make sense of my body. Whether I was bullied for being sensitive, fat, or gay, it was never clear what people would select to scruitinse. So, I made myself useful. Convenient to keep around and helpful in ways that were quantifiable to any person I managed to appease. If I could be emotionally, physically, mentally useful in some way, maybe my shortcomings would be at least a bit less apparent, right? 

Being useful and invisible does  _ not  _ include learning how to dance. Let alone even daring to dance in a casual way, around anybody. Every workplace party that we had (back in the research department days, that is), when Tim or Sasha or any of the other staff went out on the dancefloor, I shifted my way around the edges, sipping my drink, observing from afar. If anyone talked to me, I would keep up polite conversation. Just enough that they would, at some point, find a reason to walk away. 

Suffice it to say that when Jon asks me to dance with him, a soft Etta James song playing in the background, I kind of lose my ability to react. My feet don’t belong to me anymore, my hands exist in a plane separate from my own, and my mouth refuses to move. My chest moves up and down at a pace I can’t manage to mark as fast, slow, normal, or anything in between. 

“Martin? Did I say something wrong?” Jon’s voice cuts through the murk and brings my eyes back to me. I blurt out the first thing that can make its way out of my throat, crawling, gripping for something to create decibels. 

“I don’t know how to dance.”

The look Jon gives me was even more bizarre than the collection of soft glances he’s been offering me since we got here. It’s this beautiful amalgamation of confusion, affection, and slight concern. My esophagus seems to clear a bit, enough for me to justify myself further.

“I-I tried to learn when I was a kid, and it didn’t… it didn’t go well,” I rationalise, hoping that I don’t have to explain further what the hell I’m talking about. That he will just forget this interaction happened at all. But Jon doesn’t forget stuff like this, does he?

“O-oh, right,” he says, as if he  _ understands.  _ It doesn’t fill me with the same indignance as other times he’s Known things about me or my life, though. This thing in particular is something I would much rather he just read into on his own, so I don’t have to put into words this absurd fear rattling in my chest.

I was ten, a little girl then, and there was this dance class being offered at school. A bunch of girls in my year joined. My mum didn’t have any objections one way or the other to what I did with my time, she didn’t bother to notice much of what I did at school. So, I joined, thinking it might be interesting. I don’t remember much about the first class other than the next day at school a girl came up to me to say something like “fat girls can’t do ballet,” and “no one wants to see your rolls.” I never went to another class.

“Here.” Jon’s arms find their way around me, silent, warm, and he says nothing for a bit. I would be lying to say I’m not grateful for the quiet of it. Before I reconnect with where my body is in the space of the living room, I catch myself swaying with Jon in my grasp. Just a bit. I hear the quiet, yet powerful voice over the speaker as we move, slow.

“Martin,” Jon says, a grin behind his words, “We’re dancing now, aren’t we?” His head rests on my chest, my chin on his crown. I take a deep breath. Our oscillating intensifies a bit as he takes my right hand in his left, clasping them together and outstretching them. 

“Yeah, I guess we are,” I reply, his grin following me and spreading across my lips before I can help it. 

He doesn’t have to say anything else. I’ll accept this gentle gesture with grace if that’s all it is. But then—

“You dance so beautifully, Martin.” It’s a whisper, a wish against the pocket of my shirt. I can’t help the flutter that attacks my very core. 

Since our conversation the other day, Jon has formed a habit of saying little things like that. They shock me, sometimes, the blatant affection behind it is something I’m just now starting to comprehend. But this, in particular, takes me a moment to recover from. The weight of him knowing where my reservation about something so simple as dancing comes from, of him taking me into his arms and guiding me, gentle, into being comfortable, and then he… it can’t be possible. I don’t have the words or the mental know-how to reply with anything sensicle. So I just leave a kiss at the top of his head, the smell of the cheap shampoo we picked up from the village lingering in my nose. 

At this, he glances up at me, the exhaustion behind his eyes faded a little from its now constant position. All I can find in his face is this adoration I still am having to get used to.

I manage it enough to kiss him, though. Proper this time. He smiles into it.

* * *

Getting used to physical affection is one thing, but living together is another. I’ve had roommates, sure, but the sole time I’ve lived with someone I’ve been in a relationship with was Georgie, and that wasn’t a situation I would call pleasant. So, navigating the small moments with Martin has been… interesting. Chores and common areas are fine, but sharing a bedroom is a level of intimacy I’m not used to. 

I can’t pinpoint when we stopped moving to opposite sides of the room to change. Nor can I tell you when we stopped facing away from one another. But I can tell you that my feelings about it all are incomprehensible. We elected, at first, to just say nothing about it. To let this little signal of trust go under the radar, but the way he looks at me, and the way I’m sure I’m looking at him, it’s not a thing I can stand to ignore anymore. 

“Martin?” I ask as we’re cuddled up on the sofa together. The fire crackles softly and the dim light glows against Martin’s pale hands, tracing lazy shapes along my arms.

“Hm?” he hums, mindless. We’ve been in a half-asleep state on this loveseat for at least half an hour, and his voice is gentle.

“I know we haven’t done this the… traditional way, I guess you could say. But, I…” I struggle to articulate what I want to ask him. How do I say it without sounding closed off or weird? How do I explain this bizarre way my brain works? Sensing the conversation may be taking a more serious turn, Martin shifts beneath me, waking himself up.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Yes. Sorry, yes. Very okay. I just… I want you to know that I know this is a lot to adjust to, us being here together and isolated and hiding from the evil gods hunting me and all. But, I want you to know that I like this, I like sharing this with you,” I think I know what I mean, but if I’m this confused by my own thoughts, I can’t fathom what Martin must get from this. 

“Okay… good?” he replies, tip-toeing a bit along words I can’t clarify for him.

“Sorry, this sounded better in my head. I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable about bringing things up with me if, I don’t know, there’s a boundary or something you don’t want to cross.” That makes sense, right?

“I’ll let you know if that happens. Hasn’t yet, though,” he affirms, which I suppose was the root of why I brought this up at all, isn’t it?

“Good. I… I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about,” I stumble. I tilt my head up to look at Martin, hoping that perhaps looking at his face will help me sort out my thoughts.

“That’s fine, Jon, you’ve just got me worried is all. I know a lot of this stuff is new for you.”

“Yeah, new is an understatement, to be honest. Other than Georgie, I haven’t…”

“I’m right here with you. I’m not used to this kind of thing either. And the circumstances are… strange, to say the least,” he offers. He smiles down at me and an ease takes me over. I’m grateful for it. 

“Most couples don’t start out hiding from an evil, body-hopping, nineteenth century voyeur in the Scottish Highlands, no,” I say, a joking air beneath my words, but the reality of it is not lost to me. How could it be? Hell, Jonah could be watching this conversation right now if he feels so inclined. I shove down that thought as quick as it appears.

“Right, well. We can take this as slow as is possible, given… everything else.”

There’s a silence for a bit. Our breath syncs together, and the fire is warm on my feet.

“All those months after you woke up, what did you think about when it came to you and me? Did you think about anything?” Martin asks.

It’s with that question that I realise consideration of my wants is not something I’m great at. I’m sure I’ve thought about romantic things in regards to Martin, but identifying what they are is impossible at the moment. I pause for too long, it seems, as Martin’s voice echoes in my head again.

“Jon? You alright?” 

“Er, yeah, yeah I’m fine. I… I don’t know. I was so focused on keeping you safe, I didn’t… I didn’t think about that. At least, not outside of brief, reckless fantasies that disappeared before I could even tell what they were. I’m sorry.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m kind of in the same boat, there. But, if anything comes to mind, let me know. I want to use the tiny freedom we do have to work on this… even if it’s hard. Yeah?” Martin rests his head against mine and holds me close. 

“Yeah. I like the sound of that.”

* * *

We’re changing into our pyjamas after coming back from the market in town, not quite looking at each other and not quite looking away. Jon has his trousers on, but his shirt off, and so do I. Me with one set of scars across my chest, marking a positive moment of change. Jon, with two sets of scars, one set more healed than the other. The older scars mark a similar significance as mine, but the others recall back to an encounter the both of us would rather forget. I’m familiar with his scars now, seeing them at least. 

What I am not familiar with is the feeling of Jon’s bare chest against mine as he walks over to hug me. 

“Oh, hello,” I manage, the air in my lungs twisting, turning around itself. I hug him back, though, and the warmth between us is something I’m finding harder to accept with less fabric there. Jon pulls back just enough, not letting go of me but looking up to meet my eyes.

“I… needed to hug you,” Jon says, his voice hesitant but firm. His eyes (much more green than the brown they used to be), trace across my face, and I can’t help but smile. 

“Well I won’t object to that,” I reply, holding him tighter. He rests his head against my clavicle. 

Feeling the warmth of his chest against me is… a lot. I hesitate to use any ridiculous words like  _ intoxicating  _ or  _ amazing,  _ but it’s difficult not to see those phrases run across my mind. I’m not used to much skin-to-skin contact from other people at all, let alone from Jon. Even since we established what this relationship is, I think the both of us have maintained a persistent modesty. 

People wanting to touch me, with my shirt off, in any vulnerable state, is something I haven’t found often. Most of the time, even if I slept with a guy, I left my shirt on. They thought it was dysphoria or maybe they thought nothing of it at all, but it wasn’t that. I just figured it was too intrusive, too intimate, or something. Thinking of it now seems silly, but it’s true. So having Jon hug me with my shirt off is… not insignificant.

He must sense the constant stream of thoughts running through my head, if not be able to read them altogether (need to talk about that…), because I feel him pull back just enough to look up at me again.

“You alright?” he inquires.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. This is good,” I say, running a hand down his shoulder. “Do you want to…”

“Lay down? I was about to suggest that, actually,” he responds, bringing a hand up to my cheek and smiling again. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that smile.

We make our way to the bed, me leading the way. We lay down, and Jon kind of folds into my arms. The two of us have become quite used to cuddling over the last few days, but for some reason one lesser piece of clothing is enough for this to feel special. Different. New.

“Martin, I—“

“Jon, erm—“

He meets my eyes and we both pause before breaking into soft laughter.

“Let’s try that again. You start,” I say.

“I’m not… used to anything even close to sex. Even this is a bit out of my comfort zone. But I wanted you to know that I’m not… close minded, to stuff like this with you. I trust you.” The genuine emotion behind his words sends a spark of feeling through my chest. Not negative or positive, just intense. 

“I… I trust you, too, Jon. And we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, alright?”

“Okay,” he confirms. “I like this. This is good.” Our faces are parallel to each other now, much better than when we were standing a moment ago. I can see the circles under his eyes, the (glowing?) outline of his irises, the curve of his cheekbones. The pock-mark scars that cover his body are easier to spot in the light, and remind me of a difficult, albeit simpler time in our lives. Even with the limited view I have now, I can see scars and other signifiers of the hell Jon, and by extension all of the archive staff, have gone through in the last few years.

Before I can figure out where my feelings are coming from, I have to kiss him.

He returns the kiss, and I can swear I heard the softest moan escape his lips, but I let the idea of that vanish the moment it arrives. The intensity behind  _ this  _ hits me in a wave like it so often does, and our kiss holds all of it. We break away for a  _ second  _ before he pulls me back and my mind goes blank with no thought other than Jon’s lips and Jon touching my arm as I hold the back of his neck, and neither of us show any intent to stop.

We do, though, after a few moments. My head catches up to my body and I know this level of touch is something we have to address. Jon is breathing faster than normal and based on what he  _ just said,  _ this isn’t a feeling he’s going to adapt to with ease. 

“Jon,” I breathe his name more so than I say it. I catch the oxygen floating away from me, and then words can leave my lips. “This is… this is okay?” He looks at me with a slight confusion for a second before he relaxes a little. 

“Yeah, yes. Good. You’re… good at that,” he mutters, colour forming along his cheeks. I’m certain the same is happening to me.

“Thanks,” I say, smiling. It seems ridiculous, but there’s nothing else to say in a situation like this, is there?

Jon initiates it this time, eager but gentle.

* * *

While this has always been true about me, since becoming the Archivist, my attachment to my body has become disjointed at best. In the couple of weeks that we’ve been in the cabin, though, I have been pushed (willfully) to accept that my body and myself are tied to each other.

We’re in bed together, and talking about our varying experience with getting top surgery when Martin traces his fingers along the scars there, gentle and nonjudgmental. I can’t help but gasp. No one except myself and my doctor have ever touched them before. No one has ever touched them like this.

“Sorry,” he says, noticing my halting breath. “I like knowing about stuff like this. You before the Institute. How you became the man I know.” I don’t know why he thought that addition might ease my breathing, as all it manages is to make me freeze more for a moment. 

“No, it’s alright. I…” I contemplate the order of words about to come out of my mouth as his delicate fingertips run themselves along the only scars I have that came from my own free will. “It’s alright.”

Martin’s fingers move down just a little, as does the rest of him, to the part of my torso that holds the other pair of scars, unwillful in their origin. Yet, he traces them with the same tenderness as before. I hear him take a deep, albeit shaky, inhale.

“I’ll never let anything hurt you like this again,” he whispers, a promise. He speaks the wish into my ribs, now eleven pairs rather than twelve. It isn’t just about my ribs, though, and I can sense that in his determination. His words regard the pock-marks covering my skin, the burn on my hand, the cut on my neck, the countless unseen scars as well. His wish, more so a demand, strikes my core. I can’t help but quiver under its significance. 

Then he kisses the scar left by the Boneturner, his hands and lips the first thing to touch that spot outside of myself and the one who caused the marks. It sends an alarm through my body; an intense feeling I can’t begin to articulate. Martin slides back up to meet my eyes and wraps his arms around me, both of us shivering the slightest bit. He kisses my shoulder before pulling away to look at me again.

“Sorry, didn’t mean for that to get so…”

“I love you,” I say it because no other collection of words makes sense right now. 

“I love you.”

Kissing has become somewhat of second nature, now. Our lips just fit together most of the time, and it’s a brief moment of respite from my worries and the things that lurk outside our door. My fear and anguish are repelled by Martin’s gentle touch, and I find myself curling toward it.

* * *

Jon’s breath is warm along my neck as I place kisses on his forehead, nose, lips. His skin is soft, the scars lining him are a language of the pain we’ve lived through together. I want to show him that his body can hold love and beauty as much as it can hold grief and agony.

I run my lips down his neck, along his collar bone. He is quiet, breathing, eyes closed. A strand of hair lay, delicate, along his shoulder. I place a kiss on his heart, his stomach, a grateful statement to his body for staying alive. For staying with me. 

I look up to see Jon’s face, blush lining the high points of his cheeks, and he meets my eyes. His irises glow just a little back at me, but they soften as a smile spreads across his lips. A small nod, a stuttered exhale, and I move to kiss the space where his thigh meets his torso. 

Every time our skin touches, I can feel a  _ jolt  _ underneath him. A tremor of acceptance, of surprise, almost. Like he can’t believe that I want to touch him, to see him like this.  _ Of course I do, Jon. _

Breath quick, skin warm as moans escape Jon’s lips and he’s more beautiful than anything I have ever seen. The sounds I coax from him sing back to me, and I kiss the melody from his mouth. It’s all I have ever wished for. He reaches to return my touch, grasping at an attempt to bring me to where he is. Our bodies fit within and without the space around us, a deep force pulling us toward each other. 

Then, there is a moment where there is no fear. I haven’t felt such a thing at any point in my life; so powerful and so lacking in that hellish terror that my existence has been defined by. At this moment, I am Jon’s, and he is mine. He pulls me back to his lips.

We hold each other in the frozen time after it all, and Jon whispers love against my shoulder. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Follow me on Tumblr at https://beholdingransom.tumblr.com


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